In this image taken from video, Monica Lewinsky (wearing beret) smiles at President Clinton as he greets well-wishers at a White House lawn party in Washington Nov. 6, 1996.

Associated Press

The Monica Lewinsky scandal nearly drove Bill Clinton from office and to this day remains a wildcard in the presidential ambitions of Hillary Clinton.

Ms. Lewinsky, the onetime intern at the center of the scandal, suggests in a new article in Vanity Fair magazine she has taken deliberate steps over the years that protected the Clintons’ political fortunes. In return, she says she got nothing from the Clintons – no money and no consideration. She said she believes the couple is oblivious to the myriad ways in which the affair upended her own life.

Monica Lewinsky article in Vanity Fair May 2014

VanityFair

Ms. Lewinsky broke a decade-long silence on one of the most sensational scandals in American political history in a Vanity Fair article posted online Thursday. In the piece, she said she is “troubled” by Mrs. Clinton’s impulse to rationalize Mr. Clinton’s behavior while blaming herself and depicting Ms. Lewinsky as unstable. (Excerpts from the interview were published earlier this week.)

In one passage, Ms. Lewinsky cites the diaries kept by Diane Blair, a close confidante of Mrs. Clinton who chronicled her private reactions to the affair in the late 1990s. An entry from September 1998 has Mrs. Clinton describing the former White House intern as a “narcissistic loony tune.” At other points, Mrs. Clinton catalogs the stresses on her husband that might have explained his behavior: the death of his mother and the suicide of the couple’s mutual friend, Vince Foster, for example. (See the Blair memo, page 1and page 2.)

Ms. Lewinsky writes of Mrs. Clinton: “She may have faulted her husband for being inappropriate, but I find her impulse to blame the Woman – not only me, but herself – troubling. And all too familiar; with every marital indiscretion that finds its way into the public sphere – many of which involve male politicians – it always seems like the woman conveniently takes the fall.

“Sure, the Anthony Weiners and Eliot Spitzers do what they need to do to look humiliated on cable news. They bow out of public life for a while, but they inevitably return, having put it all behind them. The women in these imbroglios return to lives that are not so easily repaired.”

In her own case, she says she was made a “scapegoat in order to protect his [Bill Clinton’s] powerful position.”

For all that, Ms. Lewinsky said she has gone out of her way to minimize problems for the Clintons.

She disputes the idea she’s a narcissist. Testifying to her own character, she describes the moment in January 1998 when independent counsel Ken Starr’s prosecutors scooped her up in a northern Virginia shopping mall and threatened her with jail time unless she cooperated with their investigation of the Clinton White House. She was 24 at the time. They offered her immunity in exchange for wearing a wire in in possible conversations with Mr. Clinton and his confidantes.

She refused.

That, she says, would have been an unforgivable “betrayal.”

“That I couldn’t do,” she writes. “Courageous or foolish, maybe, but narcissistic and loony?”

A photograph showing former White House intern Monica Lewinsky meeting President Bill Clinton at a White House function submitted as evidence in documents by the Starr investigation in 1998.

Getty Images

In some ways, she says she has organized her life around Mrs. Clinton’s political aspirations.

She says she remained “virtually reclusive” in 2008, when Mrs. Clinton ran unsuccessfully for president. “Inundated with press requests,” she kept silent, she writes.

“Sure, my boss took advantage of me,” she writes, “but I will always remain firm on this point: it was a consensual relationship. Any ‘abuse’ came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.”

Now 40 years old, Ms. Lewinsky has stirred questions about why she is coming forward now.

She says she wants to help other victims of internet humiliation cope with the ordeal, with a view toward giving “a purpose to my past.”

The story laid out in Vanity Fair is a sad one. Ms. Lewinsky’s notoriety has made it tough for her to find jobs.

Employers cited her “history” in telling her she wasn’t “quite right for the position.” Others seemed interested in exploiting her notoriety, telling her she would be required to come to company events that the press would attend.

She goes out on dates, but the paparazzi pose problems. She once left a Yankees game early after learning that her date was married. Even though he was in what she called a “green-card marriage,” she “freaked that we could be photographed together and someone might call the gossip rags.

“I’ve become adept at figuring out when men are interested in me for the wrong reason,” she writes.

It’s unclear where Ms. Lewinsky goes from here. But the article’s tone suggests she wants a more normal life that doesn’t require her to go into hiding when and if Mrs. Clinton runs for president.

About Washington Wire

Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.